CFP: Ethics and the Theory of Comedy, 1660 to 1800 (9/15/06; ASECS, 3/22/07-3/25/07)

Three 20-minute papers are sought for a panel on the place of ethics inBritish and French theories of comedy during the longeighteenth-century. While earlier interpretations of Aristotle's Poeticsprovided a basis for the period's discussions of tragedy's moral force,critics interested in the ethical value of comedy could appeal to noequivalent tradition or founding text. Thus, from the prefaces ofMolière and Shadwell, through the polemics of Bossuet and Collier, tothe essays of Diderot, Beaumarchais, and Goldsmith, comedy was variouslydepicted as a corrupter of morality, as an ethically neutral diversion,or as a corrective of ethically questionable behavior. Papers on thesecritical debates, on individual theoretical positions, or on relatedtheatrical practices are welcome, as are treatments of French, British,and comparative topics.

Please e-mail proposals and brief CVs to Robert Dimit atrobert.dimit_at_nyu.edu no later than September 15. Please include yourtelephone and fax numbers, and let me know if you will need anyaudio-visual equipment.

The Society's rules permit members to present only one paper at themeeting. Members may, in addition to presenting a paper, serve as asession chair, a respondent, or a panel discussant, but they may notpresent a paper in those sessions they also chair.

All participants must be members in good standing of ASECS or aconstituent society of ISECS. Membership must be current as of December1 in order to receive pre-registration materials. Those members ofconstituent societies of ISECS MUST furnish a snail mail address toasecs_at_wfu.edu to receive pre-registration materials.